Stories of Cabeceiras

The municipal guide of the villages highlights in Cunhas a nucleus of concentrated old houses and the manor of Teixeiras Pereiras. It is a reference to the architecture of the village, without indication of access to the interior of the building.

The same guide tells two legends: one associates the name of Cunhas to a soldier called Cunha de Pau, linked to the fight against the Moors; another says that Santa Senhorinha had house in the locality. They are narratives of popular memory. The publication does not present them as proven events nor allows to locate a house of the saint.

In the Old Village of Toninha, the municipal inventory proposes occupation between the 13th and 16th centuries. It compares the constructive remains with other serran settlements, including examples in Lindoso and the abandoned village of Juriz in Montalegre. Already the plague that would have caused the people to leave belongs to the popular tradition. They are different paths to know the place: comparing buildings and collecting memories.

There is a third clue: the Investigations of 1258. The inventory proposes that the village may correspond to one of the ten couples then assigned to Juguelhe. It is a probable identification presented by the author, not an equivalence demonstrated. Comparisons with other places help to formulate this interpretation.

Imagine three cards on the table: the buildings, the document of 1258 and the narrative of the plague. Each opens a different question. What forms are repeated in other villages? What places appear in the document? What explanation conveyed the tradition? The discovery begins by crossing these clues without confusing them.

In the collections of the Museum, Maria da Conceição Gonçalves Mouta, a native of Cavez and resident in Recovos, Pedraça, identifies who transmitted the dishes. The cabbages with migas came from the grandmother, from Cavez; the broth of chestnuts, from the mother-in-law, from Pedraça. Maria de Fátima Carvalho recorded these testimonies in February 2011. Names help to realize that this memory belongs to a concrete family experience.

In March 2011, Maria da Conceição recalls the bread cooked every eight days. A portion of the previous mass was in a bowl, with a little salt inside the wooden mass. On the eve of the new batch, warm water and flour were added. The testimony of Recovos, Pedraça, also describes an adaptation: when it started cooking less often, the yeast purchased in the bakery was used.

This change has a family history. Maria da Conceição was a native of Cavez and had learned from her grandmother to make cornbread. When she was interviewed, at the age of 69, she also made mix bread. The collection does not present an immobile tradition: it shows learning, choices and a routine that adapts.

The cooking schedule was also extended to the community. In the testimony of 2011, the batches are associated with the festivals of the year, the longing for homemade bread, the feast of Santa Marinha and the Christmas and defoliated initiatives of the Association D. Nuno Álvares, of Pedraça. Saving pasta for the following week made sense in a weekly routine; cooking only from time to time put other needs. These are remembered uses in this collection, not a current party program.

Chestnuts in April and May? In the memory of Maria da Conceição Gonçalves Mouta, they were dried chestnuts that arrived at the table during the cultivation and sowing of corn. The broth, with beans, cabbage and potatoes, closed the first meal, by nine or nine and a half in the morning, after fried cod with bread.

The testimony was collected by Maria de Fátima Carvalho in February 2011, in Pedraça. Maria da Conceição had learned the preparation with her mother-in-law. The chestnuts were previously dried and aired; the baked potato was crushed and returned to the pot. Conservation, texture and working hours are found in this family memory.

Here there are two calendars: that of the fruit and that of the meal. The dried chestnut kept allowed to bring to the spring table a food associated with the harvest of another season. The memory does not only describe ingredients: it explains how the reserves of the house accompanied the time of tilling and sowing. The time of the “lunch” also surprises those who today use this word for the midday meal.

It is a story with voice and place, not a rule for all the houses of Cabeceiras. When talking about a family recipe, it is worth keeping these differences: who taught it, when it was prepared and what changed between the fireplace and the stove. Thus, a list of ingredients becomes a small history of work, learning and domestic life.

Orilheira, gruelos and potatoes composed the carnival meal remembered by Maria da Conceição in February 2011. It is a documented family memory, not a menu available all year round. Potatoes and grells cooked in the water of the meat; the earpiece returned to the container at the end, before serving with olive oil.

The collection allows us to follow the passage between generations: Maria da Conceição was born in Cavez and lived in Recovos, Pedraça; she had learned this dish from her grandmother. In 2011, the gas stove and stainless steel pots were already part of her kitchen, while the fireplace was present on special occasions. The testimony shows a tradition that coexists with changes in utensils.

Fernando Lima told, in Vila Boa from Bucos, to 23 October 2020, which emigrated after the military service. The match interrupted the practice of the game of the cock, but still liked to watch the cousin and the children of it. Before emigrating, he found other shepherds in the mountains: playing was also a way to live and make the day with the flock less long.

The National Inventory card contains another link to emigration: Custódio Bastos, from Bucos, who left for France, kept his lodon stick as a souvenir. The learning had passed by the father, Manuel Henriques Bastos, and Mestre Calado son.

There are still stories of return. In a testimony collected in October 2020, Fernando Oliveira recalls Ernesto Santos, who worked in Leiria and, after the reform, returned to Bucos and taught new generations. Leaving, keeping a memory and teaching again are different experiences within the same tradition. They are memories collected by the investigation, not an updated portrait of the participants or the trainings.

In the study of Odília Alves Gameiro, the offerings mentioned in the reports of Santa Senhorinha include wax, candles, cirios and candeias. The author interprets its low cost as a sign of a cult accessible to different social groups. The doubling of bells and oral transmission also appear in the dissemination of the narrated miracles. They are elements of the history of devotion, not proof of the supernatural events described.

The study distinguishes the offering that accompanies a request from that which thanks a grace received. The same object could thus participate in different moments of devotion. Its interpretation depends on the context narrated, and not just on the material of which it was made.

The Levada de Víbora allows you to relate the water path to the grinding work. The municipal presentation of the PR1 BCC connects the beginning to the Oral Dam, in Abadim, to the Moinhos de Rei, to woods and small watercourses. It also highlights the village and viewpoint of Porto d’Olho and Leisure Park of Víbora. Interest is not only in the destination: the channel helps to understand how the water was conducted and used. To choose the walk, see the track record and compare distance and difficulty; this reading does not replace the current conditions of the route.